Books – Detail

Click on a genre link to see the matching books; click again to return to the full Athenaeum Bookshelf. Please click Guidebooks, Youth, Poetry or Graphic Works Collection to see the Find Library catalog listings for these categories.

The Black Wolf
Louise Penny

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf. But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning.

375 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Burning Grounds: A Novel
Abir Mukherjee

Award-winning crime novelist Abir Mukherjee returns to his brilliant mystery series set in late-1920s Calcutta, as Sam Wyndham and Surendranath Banerjee must reunite to solve a high profile murder and disappearance. In The Burning Ghats of Calcutta, where the dead are laid to rest, a man is found murdered, his throat cut from ear to ear. The body is that of a popular philanthropist and patron of the arts. A man, who was, by all accounts, beloved by all. So what could possibly be the motive for murder?

First in the series: A Rising Man

373 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

A Case of the Claws: Classic Tales of Feline Crime
Catherine Aird, Edmund Crispin, Patricia Highsmith, Ellis Peters

It's deep winter. Time to light the fire, pull up a blanket and curl up with your cat. But is your feline friend playing innocent? What were they up to while you were out of sight? Slink through shadows in these classic cat-themed mystery tales from beloved crime authors Catherine Aird, Edmund Crispin, Patricia Highsmith and Ellis Peters. A Case of the Claws bring a thrilling winter chill to the festive season and asks: are these furry friends the guardians of our secrets or omens of misfortune?

90 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Clark and Division
Naomi Hirahara

Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life.

Sequel: Evergreen 

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - January 2026

305 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Crimson Thaw
Bruce Robert Coffin

In the unforgiving wilderness of Maine, a disgraced detective must confront his past to solve a chilling murder.

361 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Dentist
Tim Sullivan

Detective Sergeant George Cross can be difficult to work with, but he doesn't miss a clue. So when the body of an elderly homeless man is discovered, he insists on scrutinizing the smallest details, even after his police colleagues dismiss the murder as an act of random violence. As Cross delves into the dead man's past, he discovers a connection to a case that has been cold for fifteen years. The same tragedy that led to his homelessness may have also led to his death.

353 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Exit Strategy
Lee Child and Andrew Child

First--a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing around. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can't deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There's no problem. Nothing is missing. Second--a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climates. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help. Third--wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy's technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more ...

304 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Gallery Assistant: A Novel
Kate Belli

November 2001: Chloe Harlow wakes up late, with hazy memories of the party the night before but no recollection of how she got back to her Brooklyn apartment. Ever since the terrifying and catastrophic terrorist attack, it seems she has been on a collision course with destruction. When she finally arrives at the exclusive Upper East Side art gallery where she works, she is immediately called into her boss's office. A pair of NYPD detectives greet her, also very curious to know how her evening ended ... because the host of the party, a rising painter and the gallery's newest artist, is dead.

280 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

A Gift Before Dying: A Novel
Malcolm Kempt

In a gripping and hauntingly atmospheric novel set against the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, a disgraced police investigator discovers that his path to redemption is paved with ice-and blood.

260 pp. - Mystery/Thriller

A grave deception : a Kate Hamilton mystery
Connie Berry

Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a fourteenth-century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer.

First in the Kate Hamilton series: A Dream of Death

324 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Guilty by Definition
Susie Dent

When an anonymous letter is delivered to the Clarendon English Dictionary, it puzzles the team of lexicographers working there. It soon becomes clear that this is not the usual eccentric enquiry. The letter hints at secrets, lies, and a particular year. For Martha Thornhill, the new Senior Editor, the date can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant, beautiful older sister Charlie went missing.

385 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Hidden in memories /
Viveca Sten ; translated by Marlaine Delargy

On Easter weekend, a guest at a luxury ski lodge in Åre is stabbed to death in her plush suite. She's Charlotte Wretlind, a property developer who planned to restore a nearby mountain hotel to its long-gone glory days. It was not a random attack. It was an act of pure aggression leveled against a woman with plenty of enemies. As the murder spreads panic among tourists and Åre residents alike, Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog face a shady staff, a dogged press, and multiple suspects.

First in the series: Hidden in Snow

466 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Intruder
Freida McFadden

As a hurricane rages outside her remote cabin, Casey discovers a blood-covered girl hiding near her kitchen. The girl refuses to speak or drop her knife, and as the storm worsens, Casey uncovers a chilling secret. With danger mounting, Casey must unravel the truth--before the girl silences her for good.

276 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Katharina Code
Jørn Lier Horst ; translated from the Norwegian by Anne Bruce

Katharina went missing twenty-four years ago. Each year on the anniversary of her disappearance, Chief Inspector William Wisting rereads her files, searching for the answer he could never find; the code he could never solve. And he visits Katharina's husband, Martin Haugen, the brokenhearted man he could never help. Until now. This year is different. Another woman is missing under similar circumstances. But so is Katharina's husband. Wisting has to find him, but is he rescuing a dear old friend or playing a deadly game with a killer?

458 pp. - Mystery/Thriller

The Killing Stones
Ann Cleeves

It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland,with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children.

362 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Last Death of the Year: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Sophie Hannah

On New Year's Eve, 1932, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool travel to the Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with a small group of residents living in a crumbling house. During a game of New Year's resolutions, one guest writes a disturbing message predicting a death before the year's end.

274 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Mirage City
Lev AC Rosen

Lev AC Rosen delivers a new and captivating 1950s mystery in this dazzling, award-winning series. Private Investigator Evander 'Andy' Mills' next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco -- and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.

First in the series: Lavender House

260 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Murder in the Reading Room
Con Lehane

Raymond Ambler, crime-fiction curator at New York City’s prestigious 42nd Street Library, doesn’t consider it a big deal when he misses a call from visiting professor Robin Cartwright . . . until she turns up dead in a hotel room. Who killed the quiet academic, and why?

First in the series: Murder at the 42nd Street Library

228 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Murder on the Marlow Belle: A Novel
Robert Thorogood

Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn't come home last night, so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow's resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had rented The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, to host an exclusive party for the society, but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And when Oliver's body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in him, it's time for the Marlow Murder Club to leap into action.

Want to start at the beginning of the series? Look for The Marlow Murder Club

256 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

Murder Under the Christmas Tree: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season
edited by Cecily Gayford

Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season

278 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Night Watcher
Tariq Ashkanani

As private investigators go, Callie Munro is tougher than most. She’s had to be. Abandoned as a baby and raised by a succession of strangers, she knows a thing or two about surviving… …but she never expected to find herself hunting a serial killer. After uncovering a string of missing women, women no one seems to care, about Callie refuses to look away.

293 pp. - Mystery/Thriller

The Persian: A Novel
David McCloskey

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he's recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman's direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency.

390 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Proving Ground
Michael Connelly

Following his "resurrection walk" and need for a new direction, Mickey Haller turns to public interest litigation, filing a civil lawsuit against an artificial intelligence company whose chatbot told a sixteen-year-old boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty. Representing the victim's family, Mickey's case explores the mostly unregulated and exploding AI business and the lack of training guardrails.

387 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Quiet Mother
Arnaldur Indridason ; translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

A woman is found murdered in her Reykjavík home, her apartment ransacked. On her desk lies a note with retired detective Konrad's phone number. Days earlier, she had begged him to find the child she gave up nearly fifty years ago. But Konrad, reluctant to reopen old wounds, turned her away. Now, haunted by guilt, he vows to uncover the truth--for her and for himself.

First in the Detective Konrad series: The Darkness Knows

346 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Reckoning
Kelli Stanley

California, Southern Humboldt County, 1985. Renata Drake steps off a Greyhound bus and into small-town Garberville, hoping to disappear. She checks the papers. She's not headline news. Not yet. But she's made a mistake. The FBI have the cannabis-producing "Emerald Triangle" town-- and its corrupt residents--in their sights. Even worse, a teenage girl is missing, and when she turns up dead, the third in three years, it's clear a serial killer is living among them.

320 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Return of the Maltese Falcon
Max Allan Collins

Dashiell Hammett only wrote one novel about detective Sam Spade: The Maltese Falcon, the most famous private eye story ever told. But the case was never really solved - the priceless golden, bejeweled bird that men and women had been dying to possess turned out to be a fake. Now, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Max Allan Collins (author of Road to Perdition) brings closure to this crime classic.

224 pp. - Mystery/Thriller

The Secret of Secrets: A Novel
Dan Brown

Robert Langdon, esteemed professor of symbology, travels to Prague to attend a groundbreaking lecture by Katherine Solomon--a prominent noetic scientist with whom he has recently begun a relationship. Katherine is on the verge of publishing an explosive book that contains startling discoveries about the nature of human consciousness and threatens to disrupt centuries of established belief. But a brutal murder catapults the trip into chaos, and Katherine suddenly disappears along with her manuscript. Langdon finds himself targeted by a powerful organization and hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague's most ancient mythology.

675 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Silent Bones
Val McDermid

The thrilling latest in "queen of crime" (CrimeReads) Val McDermid's masterful detective series, Silent Bones finds DCI Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway--but was it his work or his private life that put him there?

First in the series: The Distant Echo 

436 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Suspect
Rob Rinder

When Jessica Holby, darling of UK morning TV, dies live on screen in front of millions of viewers, the nation is devastated. More devastated still when it becomes clear that her death was not an accident. The evidence points to one culprit: celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks. But junior barrister Adam Green is about to discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as it first seemed.

325 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

The Token
Sharon Bolton

Seven strangers receive a mysterious note that billionaire Logan Quick is leaving them his vast fortune. All they need to do is accept the enclosed Token and wait for his death. None of them know why they've been chosen, but all seven desperately need the money and the chance of a fresh start. When the group are forced to embark on a dangerous sea crossing, they discover they are connected by a dark secret from their past. As confusion turns to fear and trust to betrayal, the question is no longer who will claim the money - it's who will make it off the boat alive...

384 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Tokyo Express: A Novel
Seichō Matsumoto ; translated by Jesse Kirkwood

In a rocky cove at Hakata Bay, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Standing on the cold beach, the police see nothing to investigate: The flush of the couple's cheeks and the empty juice bottle speak clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, senior detective Torigai Jutaro and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime.

155 pp. Paperback - Mystery/Thriller

Under the Cold Bright Lights
Garry Disher

The young detectives think Alan Auhl is washed up, but that doesn't faze him. He does things his own way--and gets results. He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he's still a cop, even though he retired from Homicide some years ago. He works cold cases now.

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - February 2026

299 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

Venetian Vespers
John Banville

Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri--the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo--a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2025

301 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

The Widow
John Grisham

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it. Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn't commit: murder. Simon knows he's innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer...

404 pp. Hardcover - Mystery/Thriller

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